No wind in the Tigullio bay on  the third day of the 2008 Pirelli Trophy. At 3pm the RC called the day off after a long wait at sea. Apart from the GP42 and the X-35 fleets, who have their own starts and racing schedule, there are more than 100 boats racing, divided in two numerically equal groups divided at 610 sec/mi GPH, and with the fleet further split in ORC and IRC Divisions. The big boats of ORC include a wide range, from the Mini Maxis at the top to 40' at the bottom. 

 

This year edition opened with a beautiful day on May 1st, and 2 races could be completed. Just a few hours later, at 9pm, the big fleet, except the Wallys, started an overnight race that led the fleet around the Palmaria island down the coast, for a course of about 60 miles. The wind was very light all along, and Alfa crossed the line after dawn, while the rest of the fleet arrived many hours later, and many competitors ended out of the time limit, that was set at 3pm.

 

The ORC big fleet is led by Rodolfo Tasselli's Comet 41S, "Wind Song", who brilliantly won the first two races. The third was won by "BCube", a Comet 51 that completes the success of Comet production racing boats, all designed by Vallicelli of Rome, and now stands in third place. Second is Giorgio Recordati's X 41 "Extra1", with a second, a 6th and a 5th place.

 

Fourth, and first of the Mini Maxis is Carlo Puri Negri's Atalanta II, the Farr Goetz custom 70' that dominated the fleet of the Mini Maxis in the last couple of years.

 

The fleet includes 36 boats with a wide range of types and models, and the results seem to be interesting, certainly different from the past trends of IMS.

 

In the small ORC group, that raced on a windard/lewward course on Friday while the big boats were still finishing the long race, Patrone's Vismara designed "Manida" is leading the fleet, but there have been 3 different winners in the 3 races, the second was won by the First 36.7 "Key West", and the third by Cossutti's designed M37 "Low Noise", the current Italian IMS champion. The latter is second in the overall score, and third is a Grand Soleil 37 of Portuguese José Sales Grade. The fleet includes 33 boats.